The Courage Campaign’s Brian Leubitz found charts on the marriage rate and divorce rate in the Netherlands for the past few decades. They add clarity to yesterday’s testimony.

Prop 8’s Chuck Cooper wanted to spend a lot of time talking about the period from 1994 to present where it might appear that enacting marriage correlated to (and perhaps caused) a decline in the marriage rate. But viewing the larger graph shows that this was a false and fraudulent argument.

Well Mr. cooper, you clearly seem to be cheery picking your data to support your point, when the reality of the data doesn’t support your point at all.

Why are you doing that? Do you think you might be prejudiced against gay people?

and when we get to the “We’re not bigots. This is our sincere rleigious belief.” I’s like to hear this.

“So you would like to see your religious beliefs take precedence over equality before the law in civil marriage. If you as a Christian said that Jews were not entitled to the same tretament by the government as you, would not that be religious bigotry? If you said segregation is based upon your sincere religious belief, would that be different as well?

Is just me, or are these arguments against gay marriage and in support of hetero marriages getting sillier and sillier? Charts are in our favor in that they prove “nothing”. This will hopefully be viewed as a waste of time.

The reason why heterosexuals use this argument against gay couples getting marriage rights is because heterosexuals believe gay people are less than them therefore by our association with marriage we will lower the value of marriage and drive away heterosexuals. It’s so ingrained in heterosexual thought that they don’t even have to say it explicitly, other heterosexuals already know what they mean.

Whatever heterosexuals do with their own marriages will be their own doing. If none of them get married it’s their own decision. Marriage rates for heterosexual couples were falling long before gay couples demanded marriage rights because happiness plays a larger role for heterosexuals in getting married. Divorce rates for heterosexual couples were going up for a while because the divorce laws were relaxed dramatically and happiness became a much bigger factor in decisions to end marriages.

The trend downwards since 1970 is even less stark than the raw marriage rate per 1000 population would suggest.

There are two traditional peaks in marriage rates this century in most Western countries — immediately post WWII when all the troops returned home, and from the mid 1960’s to early 1970’s. The latter peak is itself due to the first because it was when the post-war baby boom came to marriage age.

If the graphs are redrawn using the population of eligible age and status (ie single) you get a much flatter line.

Marriage hasn’t died in the Netherlands. There are just fewer people per head of population that can get married in the first place. Many younger Dutch couples, like many younger Europeans, only go out and get legally married after having a child or two. They still get married, but not as their grandparents did.

The rise in divorces during the 1970’s is far more reflective of social change than are the marriage rates. Divorce ceased to have the same stigma and the financial and social status of women had altered from previous generations. There was an initial rise, but divorce rates have been largely static (or even declined) over the past 30 years in many Western countries.

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